Investment Strategy & Competitive Advantages
Albany Road utilizes various, albeit complimentary, investment strategies and unique, competitive advantages to accomplish its mission of delivering attractive current and total returns to its investors. These strategies and advantages are outlined below:
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Local
Real estate is a local business, and our firm is set up accordingly. We invest in the Northeast, Southeast, Southwest and Mountain States, and we have offices in Boston, Nashville, Dallas, and Denver. This allows our senior professionals to take advantage of their local knowledge and experience, in addition to the relationships that they have developed over their careers.
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Deal Size
Albany Road generally pursues investment opportunities priced in the $20 – $50 million range. This is inefficient yet fertile space in which to operate, as the deal size is typically too small for major institutions to focus on, and too large for the typical private operator to tackle.
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Forward Thinking
We are adroit at seeing opportunities ahead of others and capitalizing on them. We were early to recognize opportunities in the self-storage, medical office, and industrial space, and we expanded our platform to the Sunbelt years ago to take advantage of the outsized population and employment growth in these “right to work” states.
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Aligned
Albany Road’s founders and employees have historically invested a minimum of 10% of the equity in any syndicated investment or Fund, representing a commitment that now exceeds $60MM. This level of investment aligns interests and creates a relationship with our investors as “partners,” not simply LPs or clients.
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Best-In-Class
We provide what we consider to be best-in-class reporting, transparency, and communication. Albany Road’s partners and employees have worked across a broad spectrum of (1) smaller, entrepreneurial real estate firms, (2) family offices, and (3) large-scale institutions, and we have amalgamated the best practices and procedures from each experience.
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Creative
In addition to disciplined and proactive asset and portfolio management techniques, we employ creative approaches to unlock additional property value, including (1) realized aggregation strategies in the self-storage, industrial, and medical office space, and (2) acquiring investments at wholesale pricing and quickly re-selling components of the investment at higher, retail pricing.
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Diversified
To mitigate investment risk, Albany Road invests across a wide range of geographies, tenant profiles, and product types, though we are currently (and have historically been) focused on the industrial (warehouse, distribution, flex, and R&D) and office (medical, suburban, and urban) sectors.
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Execution Capability
Within the inefficient $20MM - $50MM marketplace, we feel that the risk-return metrics are notable, particularly for a manager that has discretionary equity at our disposal (and the ability to close all-cash). We believe this gives us a decided advantage over competitors who need to either syndicate their equity or align themselves with an institutional joint venture partner, while also arranging acquisition financing necessary to close. We define this advantage as our ability to “execute institutionally in non-institutional space.”
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Research-Based
We employ a research-based, data-driven approach not only to our due diligence, but also to recognize investment themes, tendencies, and opportunities ahead of trends. This approach enables us to capitalize on buy or sell-side real estate imbalances and dislocations, regardless of economic and market conditions.
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Proven
We have a proven track record across economic cycles, multiple geographies, and varied product types since our inception. We have completed 54 investments to date, and we have realized 24 of those investments.
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Unique
Albany Road’s four founding partners bring more than 150 years of real estate, investment banking, and venture capital experience to our platform. The diverse, yet complementary, skill sets of the partners provide us with unique perspectives, resources, and experiences while evaluating an investment opportunity.
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Prudent
As a tax-advantaged, yield focused buyer, the debt we employ is paramount. We are prudent borrowers, and we have developed strong relationships across a wide spectrum of the lender universe (local, regional, and national banks, life companies, and securitized lenders), many of whom are willing to follow us to different geographies.
Investment Vehicles
Initially, Albany Road acquired real estate using a syndication structure, capitalizing each investment (debt and equity) on a one-off basis. We pivoted to a fund model beginning in 2015, as described further below:
FUND I
Final Closing
February 2015
Size
$25MM
Fund Status
Closed and realized
The investments in Fund I were sold as part of a larger nine-property self-storage portfolio in April 2016, and Fund I was subsequently dissolved.
Focus
A fully discretionary self-storage fund, aimed at acquiring smaller, one-off self-storage investments in the Northeast, prior to selling an aggregated larger portfolio at a premium.
FUND II
Final Closing
April 2018
Size
$175MM
Fund Status
Closed and active
Fund II was fully deployed in April 2020 and originally consisted of seventeen investments, four of which provided co-investment opportunities for our investors. Four of these seventeen investments have since been realized.
Focus
A fully discretionary industrial and office fund, diversified by geography, product type, and tenant profile across the Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest.
FUND III
Final Closing
January 2021
Size
$245MM
Fund Status
Closed and active
Fund III is currently 25% deployed and consists of five investments to date, with four additional investments under contract to be acquired.
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Focus
A fully discretionary industrial and office fund, diversified by geography, product type, and tenant profile across the Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest.